Local democracy: Last night marked my first - and last, as my term is up in March - public hearing for a town meeting proposal, and I'd just like to share with you the ups and downs of local, participatory democracy. Please indulge me.
The Albany Planning Board proposed two changes to our zoning ordinance. The first would make the rules for dog kennels more stringent. We felt this made the most sense for our town, as it would more effectively protect animal welfare while still allowing citizens to run a kennel business in Albany. The second proposal was to restrict aircraft from taking off and landing in the town, and was prompted both by other towns' regulations (we didn't want to be the only one without protection, leading to an influx) and some citizens' complaints about unruly helicopters.
In my capacity as chair, I have to run the meetings. This generally is almost a formality, as our board is small - 6 or 7 at most meetings, depending on attendance - and the public doesn't usually show up en masse. Well, last night they showed up.
I came to the Town Hall - Boudicca and Prometheus know where it is - and saw dozens of cars parked in the lot and along Route 16. Naively, I assumed there was a function at the town offices for some group.
I came into the Planning Board room and asked what all the cars were there for. The board secretary said "they're all here for you." Gulp.
So I went into the main meeting hall - where we hold town meeting, as Prometheus can describe to you - and saw that it was nearly full. Double Gulp.
It was pretty imposing, especially when I learned that most people were there to tell us our helicopter ordinance was (to be polite) ill-advised.
I opened the hearing, and had to set some ground rules for the larger group. I mandated that all comments had to come through the chair, all comments would be civil, and that the purpose of the hearing was to obtain public input. The Dog Ordinance sailed through and will be on the ballot this year.
The Helicopter Ordinance did not sail through. For the better part of two hours, residents and interested parties told us how terrible the ordinance was. As anyone who's been to a small-town New Hampshire meeting can attest, someone invariably stands up to tell a board that their actions are actually a secret plan to take away all liberties. This happened many, many times.
I like to think I did a passable job running the meeting. People disagreed without being disagreeable, and I only had to call for 'order' once or twice. It became pretty apparent that our Helicopter Ordinance was DOA, though. I feel the worst for Brett, the author of the proposal, who probably took the brunt of the antagonism.
The end result is that I closed the public hearing and the board decided not to put the proposal on the ballot, since it would lose badly and therefore discredit the whole enterprise of trying to address the problem.
This is the great thing about New Hampshire that, despite its frustrations, I would not do without: the pure democracy of small-town government. The only way for major changes to a town's laws to pass is through public hearings, debate, and finally a vote of all town citizens. This puts the burden on any board that wants to change the law.
So as a Planning Board, we have to convince people that our proposal balances their private property interests with the interests of the town as a political body. In the case of the Dog Ordinance, we met the first test and the voters will decide in March. In the case of the Helicopter Ordinance, we didn't.
I have learned a lot about land use - which wasn't even on my radar in 2003 - over my three-year term on the Planning Board, and a lot about how towns operate, too. It was tough at times, but it was fun, too. I recommend it for anyone who's interested in learning how things work or don't work in their government.
The Albany Planning Board proposed two changes to our zoning ordinance. The first would make the rules for dog kennels more stringent. We felt this made the most sense for our town, as it would more effectively protect animal welfare while still allowing citizens to run a kennel business in Albany. The second proposal was to restrict aircraft from taking off and landing in the town, and was prompted both by other towns' regulations (we didn't want to be the only one without protection, leading to an influx) and some citizens' complaints about unruly helicopters.
In my capacity as chair, I have to run the meetings. This generally is almost a formality, as our board is small - 6 or 7 at most meetings, depending on attendance - and the public doesn't usually show up en masse. Well, last night they showed up.
I came to the Town Hall - Boudicca and Prometheus know where it is - and saw dozens of cars parked in the lot and along Route 16. Naively, I assumed there was a function at the town offices for some group.
I came into the Planning Board room and asked what all the cars were there for. The board secretary said "they're all here for you." Gulp.
So I went into the main meeting hall - where we hold town meeting, as Prometheus can describe to you - and saw that it was nearly full. Double Gulp.
It was pretty imposing, especially when I learned that most people were there to tell us our helicopter ordinance was (to be polite) ill-advised.
I opened the hearing, and had to set some ground rules for the larger group. I mandated that all comments had to come through the chair, all comments would be civil, and that the purpose of the hearing was to obtain public input. The Dog Ordinance sailed through and will be on the ballot this year.
The Helicopter Ordinance did not sail through. For the better part of two hours, residents and interested parties told us how terrible the ordinance was. As anyone who's been to a small-town New Hampshire meeting can attest, someone invariably stands up to tell a board that their actions are actually a secret plan to take away all liberties. This happened many, many times.
I like to think I did a passable job running the meeting. People disagreed without being disagreeable, and I only had to call for 'order' once or twice. It became pretty apparent that our Helicopter Ordinance was DOA, though. I feel the worst for Brett, the author of the proposal, who probably took the brunt of the antagonism.
The end result is that I closed the public hearing and the board decided not to put the proposal on the ballot, since it would lose badly and therefore discredit the whole enterprise of trying to address the problem.
This is the great thing about New Hampshire that, despite its frustrations, I would not do without: the pure democracy of small-town government. The only way for major changes to a town's laws to pass is through public hearings, debate, and finally a vote of all town citizens. This puts the burden on any board that wants to change the law.
So as a Planning Board, we have to convince people that our proposal balances their private property interests with the interests of the town as a political body. In the case of the Dog Ordinance, we met the first test and the voters will decide in March. In the case of the Helicopter Ordinance, we didn't.
I have learned a lot about land use - which wasn't even on my radar in 2003 - over my three-year term on the Planning Board, and a lot about how towns operate, too. It was tough at times, but it was fun, too. I recommend it for anyone who's interested in learning how things work or don't work in their government.
posted by Joshua @ 12:16 PM
12 Comments:
As determined as I am to never live in New Hampshire again, I firmly believe there is nothing more democratic and awesome (and often annoying) than New England town hall meetings. I have strong memories from my youth of my parents going out to these meetings and coming home after midnight, having been kept there for four hours by several old gentlemen who believed the world was coming to an end because they wanted to build an addition onto the school. In fact the only thing that ever sailed through legislation was building new soccer fields (my hometown was a little sports-crazed).
The greatest and worst thing about these meetings was that budget and planning items were voted upon that night, and whoever stuck it out to the end of the meeting would be able to vote on it. Sadly the town leaders changed the procedures about 10 years ago so that all discussion about planning and budgetary items would be held one evening, and the voting would be the next evening. This was good in that people who couldn’t stick out the sometimes 8-hour meetings could actually have a say in town government, but bad because it meant that it was that much easier to go to the polls ill-informed. I’m curious how they do things in Tacitean’s town, which I imagine is slightly smaller than the ever-growing suburb of Amherst.
I never posted before on the idea of changing the first primary, but I sincerely hope that they don’t. There are very few states that are as well-informed, stubborn, and unpredictable as New Hampshire. Nowhere else do you find voters who believe it is the candidate’s responsibility to personally knock on their door and answer all of their questions about the issues. Well perhaps you do, but it’s more fun to watch big-time political advisors struggle in the New Hampshire winter amidst all of the small-towners who are completely unimpressed by them. If there’s another state that fits that bill, please let me know.
Okay, I have to know: why have you determined never to live here again? You just spoke so highly of the place!
Why do I not want to live in New Hampshire? Because I like living in a place where I can buy anything I need at any time of day or night. Because I like not having to worry about driving when it’s raining, snowing, or when I end up having a few drinks. Because I hate having to drive to Boston if I want to see an independent film. Because I’m trying to avoid the mall-ing of America, which has taken hold of New Hampshire full force. Because I’m not really an outdoors person, haven’t been since my Girl Scout days. Because I like living amongst people who are by and large politically aware, culturally aware, and don’t immediately think of marriage and children as soon as they graduate high school. Yes, this is a gross exaggeration and there are plenty of NH-ers who don’t fit that profile, but many do, many who I went to high school with and once had aspirations outside of having a baby by the age of 21 and working at Wal-Mart (did I mention it’s often depressing to see the people I grew up with?). Also, I try to avoid places with a large number of very small-minded people who don’t want their children exposed to ‘outside influences they don’t approve of.’ True you can find that anywhere, but my high school friends and I referred to our town as “Bubbleville” for a reason. And of course, for practically, for my line of work living in New Hampshire means doing wedding videos or being chained to the hem of Ken Burns, Inc for the rest of my life.
This doesn’t mean, however, that I can handle outsiders making fun of my home state. It’s like the dysfunctional family that I try to avoid but still have a strange loyalty to and will defend to detractors who don’t know anything about it. I think most people feel that way about their home states, though. Do they?
Prometheus, sugar, you know I'd be tickled pink to offer up some of my Southern-fried opinions, but I'm just not quite sure what you are asking little old me to explain.
The south is by-and-large disenfranchised with politics, and with at least some reason, as they haven't seen their lives improve much as a result of it. What they do see in their daily lives is that malls bring jobs. McMansions bring jobs. There are pretty parts of the south, of course, and those places protect their identity with an iron fist - being pretty is where they get their economy. But most of it is ugly already, and a well built mall can at least lend an air of architectural grandeur to the wasteland. These are places where mallification is win-win. Now I grew up in Houston (and Bartlesville OK, the second-richest-per-capita town in the country) so my view might be a little skewed. Still, there are a few common political themes there.
1. Politics might as well be baseball. The party-indentities come first, with justification for the ideals an afterthought. Last gubernatorial, Oklahoma elected a Democratic governer largely because OU head coach Barry Switzerauto-dialed the entire state. This is also how Wesley Clark won the primary there. People are Republican the way that I'm a Red Sox fan, and they HATE clinton the way that I HATE Roger Clemens...
2. Except they're having Republicanism (not conservatism, which I don't believe even describes the current Republican party) preached at church. One of my mom's friends, a deeply religious woman who entertains the idea that Dubya is the second coming of Christ (a disturbingly common belief in the south) had a theistic quandary about wearing a "peace on earth" sweatshirt around Christmastime. Bring guns and gays into it and you've got a ball-game.
3. Taxes are considered theft. Despite the fact that southern politicians are notoriously pork-barrel, they cannot see the effect of taxes feeding the economy. A study has been done to prove that states who receive more than they give in taxes are overwhelmingly opposed to taxes, while those who give more than they receive are more in support of them. If you mentioned this to a suburban dad in Houston, that New York and California are paying for his bridges and roads, he'd find a way to self-righteously explain why Texas is entitled, or deny the facts completely.
4. Town Hall meetings aren't really a part of life. But school board meetings most definitely are. This is where the citizens see the effects of their government, and they will schedule their calendars around them. Even people with no school-aged children will show up to scream their opposition to any money spent on education. A couple of years ago I received a number of panicked phone calls asking me (along with numerous other recent grads) to write a statement in order to save my favorite teacher's job. (We were phenomenally successful - they built her a new auditorium.)
5. Dispite my disagreement with their politics, they are, of course, generally good people. They're discontent with their lives, by and large, but it's not like they're going to pack it up and move to San Francisco to make it better either. This land is what they know, and that's where they'll stay. They can't really consider any alternative. When I moved to New York, the move was met with a mixture of subdued awe and equally subdued envy, as if I had won the lottery or had been plucked out of nowhere to star in a Jerry Bruckheimer wehicle. It couldn't happen to them, and they didn't know why. It had little to do with economics, as the poorest kid I knew in Bartlesville (two-room, cinderblock house poor) now lives in the West Village and makes a decent living for himself as a fashion designer.) They were just Okies. They could go to Texas, maybe, but the coasts were crazy, exotic places they could only visit and marvel at. They have no place there. The life lived in in houston might be McDonalds until retirement, but it's a life lived at home, where they know they have to be, by lottery of birth. And part of maturing is letting those dreams of other places and grander aspirations die, acquiescing them to those of us lucky enough to stake a claim in New York or California. No wonder they feel entitled to all that pork after all.
The south is by-and-large disenfranchised with politics, and with at least some reason, as they haven't seen their lives improve much as a result of it. What they do see in their daily lives is that malls bring jobs. McMansions bring jobs. There are pretty parts of the south, of course, and those places protect their identity with an iron fist - being pretty is where they get their economy. But most of it is ugly already, and a well built mall can at least lend an air of architectural grandeur to the wasteland. These are places where mallification is win-win. Now I grew up in Houston (and Bartlesville OK, the second-richest-per-capita town in the country) so my view might be a little skewed. Still, there are a few common political themes there.
1. Politics might as well be baseball. The party-indentities come first, with justification for the ideals an afterthought. Last gubernatorial, Oklahoma elected a Democratic governer largely because OU head coach Barry Switzerauto-dialed the entire state. This is also how Wesley Clark won the primary there. People are Republican the way that I'm a Red Sox fan, and they HATE clinton the way that I HATE Roger Clemens...
2. Except they're having Republicanism (not conservatism, which I don't believe even describes the current Republican party) preached at church. One of my mom's friends, a deeply religious woman who entertains the idea that Dubya is the second coming of Christ (a disturbingly common belief in the south) had a theistic quandary about wearing a "peace on earth" sweatshirt around Christmastime. Bring guns and gays into it and you've got a ball-game.
3. Taxes are considered theft. Despite the fact that southern politicians are notoriously pork-barrel, they cannot see the effect of taxes feeding the economy. A study has been done to prove that states who receive more than they give in taxes are overwhelmingly opposed to taxes, while those who give more than they receive are more in support of them. If you mentioned this to a suburban dad in Houston, that New York and California are paying for his bridges and roads, he'd find a way to self-righteously explain why Texas is entitled, or deny the facts completely.
4. Town Hall meetings aren't really a part of life. But school board meetings most definitely are. This is where the citizens see the effects of their government, and they will schedule their calendars around them. Even people with no school-aged children will show up to scream their opposition to any money spent on education. A couple of years ago I received a number of panicked phone calls asking me (along with numerous other recent grads) to write a statement in order to save my favorite teacher's job. (We were phenomenally successful - they built her a new auditorium.)
5. Dispite my disagreement with their politics, they are, of course, generally good people. They're discontent with their lives, by and large, but it's not like they're going to pack it up and move to San Francisco to make it better either. This land is what they know, and that's where they'll stay. They can't really consider any alternative. When I moved to New York, the move was met with a mixture of subdued awe and equally subdued envy, as if I had won the lottery or had been plucked out of nowhere to star in a Jerry Bruckheimer wehicle. It couldn't happen to them, and they didn't know why. It had little to do with economics, as the poorest kid I knew in Bartlesville (two-room, cinderblock house poor) now lives in the West Village and makes a decent living for himself as a fashion designer.) They were just Okies. They could go to Texas, maybe, but the coasts were crazy, exotic places they could only visit and marvel at. They have no place there. The life lived in in houston might be McDonalds until retirement, but it's a life lived at home, where they know they have to be, by lottery of birth. And part of maturing is letting those dreams of other places and grander aspirations die, acquiescing them to those of us lucky enough to stake a claim in New York or California. No wonder they feel entitled to all that pork after all.
Pascal's: "The life lived in in Houston might be McDonalds until retirement, but it's a life lived at home, where they know they have to be, by lottery of birth. And part of maturing is letting those dreams of other places and grander aspirations die, acquiescing them to those of us lucky enough to stake a claim in New York or California."
Prome: "It's very interesting hearing that point of view, because I feel like it represents small-town America in general, not just the South. I think the South kind of gets a bad rap in certain areas just because the culture tends to better accentuate the problems in small-town America."
Wow! Here I was laboring under the idea that the people I see every day were living in 'small-town America' because they wanted to. No, no! They failed to win at life's lottery, so they're really just killing time and letting go of their dreams to live in New York City or Los Angeles, the destination of those lucky few who got the golden ticket.
I realize that many, many people do in fact want to live in cities. A majority of the country clearly does. They are, of course, welcome to it. But this does not mean that everyone who does not live in an urban area is somehow pathological or deprived, in need of some rescue that will never come. Maybe they just feel the same way about their homes and lives in the country that city-dwellers feel about theirs.
This, if I can add, is why the Democrats have completely lost small-town America. Are many people in rural America complete loons? Of course they are! I myself am an embarrasingly retrograde moralizing reactionary. But guess what: many people in urban America are complete loons, too. By asking such idiotic questions as "What's the matter with Kansas?" Democrats have made it clear they side with the urban loons and will only view rural problems as things to be dealt with in the most patronizing manner possible. "Poor dears! If only they could live within five minutes' walk of a good theater district, they'd give up their silly notions about 'values!'"
Here's my crazy notion: we are all part of the same country. Some parts of this country have more people than others. Some people have less. This does not make those parts better. It does not make those parts worse. It just makes them what they are.
Everyone, no matter where they live, just wants to be treated with a decent respect for the honest choices they've made. That's all.
I must confess to still being confused at the exact geographic location of Oklahoma. I've never really known it to be in "The South." Prome, if you would kindly clarify what you meant by "The South," as well as what else you wanted in a "Southern" viewpoint, I would love to offer my two cents.
I wrote a really long comment at work, but I posted it during some "null time" when Blogger wasn't working, so it got deleted. This is actually for the best, since I now have to be more succinct.
My essential points:
1) Yes, it is correct to question the situation and seek remedies for endemic rural populations. But beware that 'progress' does not mean the same thing as 'become like a city.'
2)The reason many rural folk resent city 'suggestions', let's call them, is because they very often take the tone of "become like us." This defeats the purpose of the country being the country.
3)Boudicca's question is a valid and relevant one. Is Oklahome part of the South? I would say geographically it is not, nor is it culturally. The idea that people would think it is sort of proves my point that the coasts and heartlands don't understand each other. "Well, they believe in God a little too much and they're sorta poor... south it is!"
4)Cities and country should work in concert, but this has become increasingly difficult in the age of global trade, as cities can receive many of their goods from overseas, making rural America an afterthought.
5)I don't like suburbs, either! I'm an equal-opportunity reactionary!
In my original comment (much longer), I focused on what I felt the reason for discord between city and country. That is, they no longer "need" each other.
I mean, if cities can get their goods from international sources, what's the point of the country? This is why New Jersey, for example, is a paved-over wasteland; it no longer needs to serve as agricultural countryside for NYC, so it doesn't. Ditto for those same areas in Connecticut.
So we have to ask ourselves some really difficult questions, like "should this small town exist?" Let's take Berlin, New Hampshire, for example. It was founded in the Great North Woods as a logging camp and then the headquarters of a great mill operation. Immigrants from the world over flocked to it and it grew to 20,000. But in the age of international trade, its mills are simply not as competitive as they used to be. Its population has halfed in the last 70 years.
Berlin is not self-sufficient economically and its trade goods are no longer competitive. So what's the town doing there, economically speaking? I don't think I need to tell you that there are countless Berlins dotting the American landscape. Those of us who went to school in upstate New York saw many of them as we drove on Route 20. What are they doing there?
In an effort to reach some sort of concord here - I do want to allay any fears that I'm going to burn down all the cities - let me propose that America's next "frontier" is the revitalization of small-town America. We need to make places livable again and make them worth living in, or else people will continue to pile into unsustainable suburbs where there really IS no future.
How do we get there, then? Less intrangisence from town folk and less condescension from city folk (I'm not referring to this thread, but addressing the prevalent stereotypes). An honest realization that it's in the cities' best interest to have a vibrant townscape and that it's in the towns' best interest to take the best parts of urban design into account.
It's not pork to create a first-class rail system that makes living in the country less isolated. It's not pork to support and fund Wifi and broadband Internet. It's not pork to support 'lean' manufacturing that once again connects localities with their resources in a meaningful and productive way.
Nor is it pork to sponsor "New Urbanist" legislation designed to make land use in towns more realistic rather than imitation-suburbs.
It will take investments of course, much of that money taken from blue-state income tax. But the dividends are increased trade between and among towns and less migration to suburbs. Therefore less mall-ification. Less sprawl. The social benefits from that alone are worth making the investment.
First, thank you, Prometheus, for explaining my points about the poverty and the talent leaks, you nailed it. Though I was also talking about the resentment. Secondly, Oklahoma is indeed a border state, which some people consider midwest, others South, and other Bible belt. Whatever, I was also talking about Texas, which suffers no such ambiguity. It is it's own country (and actually the only state in the union aside from maybe Hawaii to have held that distinction at one time.)
Anyway, moral reactionism aside, the small town folk I've met have been more lioberal than you'd think, for the most part, but have been so indoctrinated (mostly in the churches) to think that it's a very real sin to vote anything other than Republican. It got to the point where a lot of the Okies I knew in the last election refused to vote, because even though they knew that they wanted Bush out and that, on an intellectual level they agreed with what Kerry was saying, they had a built-up mental block against voting democratic. You know, unless Barry Switzer tells them it's okay.
Well said.
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